Dispensers for inter-folded napkins are well known in the art. Typically such dispensers are spring-loaded dispensers as is shown for example in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,454 to Salzmann et al. There is shown in the '454 patent a napkin dispenser including a drawer which slides in and out of the housing and a push plate which also slides in the housing and is spring-biased to push the napkins forward. A pair of locks on the rear of the drawer in the preferred napkin dispenser pushes the plate forward when the drawer is open but pivot to release the push plate when the drawer is closed so the napkins are not pressed too tightly, even if napkins are overloaded in the drawer when it is open. U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,703 to De Luca discloses a napkin dispenser configured to reduce bunching at the dispensing opening in the napkin dispenser. A pair of pressure relief rods are provided along the upper and lower portions of the dispenser face plate to relieve pressure between the face plate and the center portion of the napkin stack. U.S. Pat. No. 4,343,415 to Radek shows a napkin dispenser designed for disposition on a restaurant table or counter housing a stack of paper napkins. The dispenser is in the form of a parallelepiped with a top axis opening for loading and removing napkins. The opening is generally rectangular or may taper slightly from one end to the other. A salient feature is that the edges of the opening extend outwardly providing a relatively narrow peripheral arcuate flange or lip around the opening, the effect of which is to lead a napkin gently outwardly without likelihood of damage to the exiting napkins. U.S. Pat. No. 4,311,252 to Hope, Jr. et al. discloses a large capacity elevator type napkin dispenser including an elongated supporting structure or cage composed of series of spaced rod-like vertical supports. A stack of folded napkins is supported on a pressure plate that is mounted on a carriage adapted to slide vertically within the cage. U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,442, also to Radek discloses a napkin dispenser provided with an aperture which is generally rectangular except for a concavely arcuate edge on one side from which the napkins are normally extracted. Two opposed sides of the opening normal to the arcuate edge are provided with a pair of relatively narrow spring-biased leaves resiliently extendable into the container to facilitate loading, the free edges of the leaves being longitudinally gently oblique and widening to the aforesaid arcuate edge. Each of the leaves has a longitudinal outwardly turned lip and the exposed corners of the leaves are rounded. The features are reported to contribute towards a convenient extraction of a napkin without damage.
There is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,028 to Merila a dispenser for paper napkins consisting of a housing adapted to support a stack of napkins in such a manner that a flap of the lowermost napkin depends downwardly in the housing by gravity and an ejector is mounted moveably in the housing and operable by reciprocation to engage the depending napkin flap and extend it outwardly through an opening of the housing where it may be grasped for removal from the housing.
In connection with gravity-feed dispensers, it is known to employ shelf members projecting inwardly into the housing. In this respect there is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,003,723 to Morand a dispenser for stacked single-fold towel sheets with a rear wall, sidewalls and front and rear funnel walls extending to a funnel height between bottom portions of the sidewalls on opposite sides of a feed slot and a pair of shelf members projecting downwardly and inwardly from respective ones of the sidewalls.
So also, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,092 likewise to Morand there is shown a dispenser for dispensing folded interleaved towels. The dispenser has front and back walls joined by sidewalls and a bottom wall with a central paper towel dispensing slot extending between the sidewalls. The dispenser has a support on the inner surfaces of the front and back walls for partially supporting sub-stacks of a stack of paper towels carried in the dispenser. The supports reduce the weight of towels carried by the bottom sub-stack of towels making it easier to dispense the towels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,863 to Schutz et al. discloses an insert device for a sheet dispenser having a housing for receiving a stack of folded sheets, a bottom opening of the housing being formed as a rounded elongate slot having an enlarged center portion. The dispenser includes a rear panel portion, an inwardly and upwardly sloping front ramp portion and a pair of side panel portions connecting the front ramp to the rear panel and a ledge portion extending inwardly from the panel portion toward the ramp portion. There is noted in the '863 patent a plurality of ridges along the front ramp of the insert device.
From the foregoing references one of skill in the art will appreciate that long sought-after features in dispensers for absorbent sheet are that the dispensers dispense product without bunching or tearing of the napkins or towels and that the product is not released in “clumps” leading to excessive waste; since releasing too many sheets at a time will lead to sheets being discarded without ever having been used. A likewise sought-after characteristic for a dispenser for absorbent sheets is that the dispenser should dispense one sheet at a time. Various means have been employed to try to achieve this result, for example, a dispensing slot that is relatively narrow and is provided with a transverse slot to restart the stack in the event a tail no longer protrudes from the dispenser. Such apertures can be seen, for example, in PCT publication no. WO 97/09918 and PCT publication no. WO 98/22009.
Despite many advances in the art, there is still a need for a low-cost, reliable dispenser which can accommodate a large number of absorbent sheets and reliably dispense the sheets, preferably one sheet at a time, in response to a grasping/withdrawing motion of a user.